Asus Maximus VI Hero (Z87) Motherboard Review

1. Introduction2. Asus Maximus VI Hero: Packaging and Bundle3. Asus Maximus VI Hero: Board Layout and Features4. Asus Maximus VI Hero: BIOS & Software5. Asus Maximus VI Hero: Overclocking6. Testing Methodology7. System: PCMark 88. System: 3DMark 119. System: 3DMark10. System: Unigine Heaven Benchmark11. Processor: SiSoft Sandra12. Processor: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit13. Processor: Super Pi14. Processor: MKV HD Performance15. Processor: Media Encoding - MediaEspresso16. Processor: Media Encoding - HandBrake17. Motherboard: SATA Performance18. Motherboard: USB 3.0 Performance19. Gaming: Battlefield 320. Gaming: Sleeping Dogs21. Gaming: Metro 203322. Technical: Power Consumption23. Closing Thoughts24. View All Pages

Providing a fresh burst of excitement in Asus' premium Republic Of Gamers series, the Maximus VI Hero is the first ROG motherboard built specifically for the mid-range gamer. Has Asus' price-constricting approach paid off?

Sparking attention due to its true gaming-orientated design and a price tag to match, the Maximus VI Hero is Asus' newest ATX member of its Republic Of Gamers motherboard series. With the Hero, Asus aims to offer all of the gaming-intended features typically found on ROG boards, but with a lower price tag achieved by omitting the enthusiast hardware such as PLX PCI-E switches.

With support for SLI/CrossFire configurations, SupremeFX audio, and gaming enhancements, can the Asus Maximus VI Hero prove that it has what it takes to win over the gaming crowd?

Features:

• SupremeFX – Supremacy through discrete-calibre audio
• Sonic Radar – Scan and detect to dominate
• Extreme Engine Digi+ III – Hardcore power delivery with premium components
• GameFirst II + Intel LAN – Put Your Frags First

Asus ships the Maximus VI Hero in typical, bold red ROG packaging. Key features and specifications are found on the box's rear side, with a glimpse at the board and further information being revealed upon lifting a flap.

A user guide, driver CD, SATA labels, ROG case badge, and ‘Do Not Disturb' door hanger form the supplied documentation.

As a clear indication that Asus has been forced to cut costs to meet the M6H's target price, a simplistic bundle for a Republic Of Gamers motherboard is supplied with the Hero.

The bundle consists of:

• 6x latching SATA cables.
• 1x two-way SLI bridge.
• Q-connectors.
• Foam padded IO shield.

As part of Asus' Republic Of Gamers series of products, the Maximus VI Hero sports the ever-attractive red and black colour scheme. Matching hardware with the Maximus VI Hero shouldn't be a problem; manufacturers have been tailoring their components for red and black colour schemes for years.

Measuring 12″ x 9.6″, the Maximus VI Hero motherboard conforms to a standard ATX form factor.

Four alternating red and black DIMM slots are capable of holding up to 32 gigabytes of DDR3 memory with frequencies as high as 3000MHz. We will be putting the high-frequency support claim to the test with a set of 3000MHz Avexir Core Extreme memory.

The Maximus VI Hero motherboard’s DIMM slots feature Asus’ second generation T-Topology which, according to the company, improves the overclocking margin by up to 5% under full load and 10% for a one-DIMM configuration. Put simply, the T-Topology creates paths of equivalent distance between each DIMM slot (more specifically, memory channel) and the CPU. This helps to minimise the performance drops that can be encountered by poor clock synchronisation when unequal path distances are used. More information regarding T-Topology can be found on Asus’ ROG blog here.

A single USB 3.0 internal header is found in an outwards-facing orientation, adjacent to the 24-pin power connector. Given that this gaming motherboard is very likely to be used in a chassis environment, a right-angled USB 3.0 header would have helped to ease cable management efforts.

Start, reset, and MemOK buttons are found alongside a two-digit diagnostic panel in the OC Zone.

While we criticised the Maximus VI Extreme for positioning its OC Zone too close to the vicinity of extreme cooling pots, the Hero isn't primarily designed for LN2 or DICE use, so the location isn't a problem.

Sitting beneath a heavy-duty, eye-catching VRM heatsink are the eight power phases that feed an LGA 1150 processor installed in the Maximus VI Hero. Memory modules are powered by a pair of phases.

The power delivery components form Asus' Extreme Engine Digi+ III which consists of; NexFET MOSFETs, 60 Amp BlackWing chokes, 10K Black Metallic Capacitors, and a digital controller.

According to Asus, the NexFET MOSFETs offer efficiency that is greater than 90% and a smaller size than their standard counterparts. The BlackWing chokes support current levels of up to 60A while maintaining cool operation due to their surface area-enhancing shape. The 10K Black Metallic Capacitors are touted as offering 20% better low temperature endurance and five times longer lifespan than generic solid state capacitors.

An 8-pin CPU power connector is found in its usual location, close to the VRM heatsink. There is no need to worry about the power cable fouling other components, as we mentioned in the Maximus VI Extreme motherboard's review; the Maximus VI Hero doesn't support the mPCIe Combo II card found on other Z87 ROG products.

Two 4-pin fan headers are found in their ideal location. One of the headers looks to posses the ability of adjusting the speed of a 3-pin fan in relation to CPU temperature.

Asus deserves credit for what we would call an ideal layout for a gaming-optimised ATX motherboard. The two x16-length PCI-E slots are allocated enough space between them to allow for cooling, or hassle-free use with triple-slot cards. Both the full-length PCI-E x4 and uppermost PCI-E x1 slots can also be accessed when two dual-slot cards are being used.

When two graphics cards are used, the pair of red x16-length PCI-E slots will run at PCI-E 3.0 x8 bandwidth each. This should still be sufficient bandwidth to not hamper a Quad-SLI or Quad-CrossFire configuration that uses dual-GPU cards.

Front panel headers are found in their usual location, with audio taking position on the left side, and chassis connections sitting on the right. A 4-pin header placed on the board's bottom edge is useful for those with side panel fans.

The Maximus VI Hero features support for the OC Panel via its ROG_EXT connector. In making use of the ROG_EXT header, functionality for one of the two internal USB 2.0 headers is lost. While it may be unlikely that the Maximus VI Hero's target audience is going to purchase the OC Panel, Asus would have been wise to fit the board with at least two USB 2.0 headers that are usable all of the time.

We had to give up functionality of our NZXT Phantom 630's front card reader when using the ROG OC Panel as we ran out of USB 2.0 headers.

A DirectKey button allows the board to boot into its BIOS upon being powered.

Eight right-angled SATA ports are found on the Maximus VI Hero motherboard, a number which should be plenty for most gamers. Two ports on the left operate from an ASMedia ASM1061 controller, while the six on the right are provided by the Z87 chipset.

Some type of marking to indicate the externally-controlled SATA ports would have been a wise move by Asus. Instead, users have to read the ports' names directly from the PCB.

With a gamer target audience in mind, the M6H utilises a SupremeFX audio system that consists of EMI shielding, an isolated PCB path, and high-quality capacitors. Underneath the SupremeFX-branded cover, we will find a Realtek audio chip that is likely to be the ALC1150.

The Sonic Radar gaming overlay that indicates the direction of enemy footsteps, gunfire, and explosions can be used with the Maximus VI Hero motherboard.

Four USB 3.0 ports on the back panel are provided by the Z87 chipset. The Intel I217V controller provides gigabit Ethernet and is compatible with Asus' GameFirst II network control software.

Motherboard rear ports:

• 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port
• 1 x HDMI
• 1 x LAN (RJ45) port
• 4 x USB 3.0
• 4 x USB 2.0
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF out
• 6 x Audio jack(s)
• 1 x USB BIOS Flashback Button

As proven by red circles in the above image, Asus evenly distributes five 4-pin fan headers around the Maximus VI Hero motherboard.

Firstly, we are pleased to report that our Leetgion Hellion mouse worked to its usual standard in the Asus Maximus VI Hero motherboard's UEFI BIOS. This is a positive point as we have experienced problems when using certain mice in the UEFI BIOS of other motherboards in the past.

The Maximus VI Hero motherboard's UEFI BIOS is largely identical to that found on the Extreme. There are some minor changes which typically relate to overclocking flexibility.

 

The Extreme Tweaker section of the Maximus VI Hero's UEFI BIOS is very similar to that of other Asus motherboards, especially those from the ROG series. Upon entering the Extreme Tweaker page, users are greeted by a well laid-out and easy to understand interface with plenty of tweaking options.

Plenty of CPU power and voltage adjustment settings can be accessed via their dedicated pages.

The main components that are connected to one's motherboard are outlined on the GPU.DIMM Post page of the Extreme Tweaker section.

The Maximus VI Hero does not feature any customised overclocking profiles. Instead, it features three ‘CPU level up' speed boosts which increase the processor's multiplier and VCore level.

 

Asus equips the M6H with a maximum memory multiplier of 32x. Plenty of timings settings can be accessed and manipulated.

The list of pre-defined memory overclocking profiles found on the Maximus VI Extreme is left out of the Hero's UEFI BIOS.

System information is outlined on the ‘Main' page of the UEFI BIOS.

 

Onboard controllers and other settings can be accessed through the Advanced subsection. A specific section can be used to set the PCI-E lane configuration which is good for ensuring that a single card receives full bandwidth.

 

The monitor section provides access to temperature, voltage, and fan control readings. The fan speed control featured on the Maximus VI Hero motherboard is very similar to what we have seen on Asus motherboards in previous generations; certain modes (such as Turbo and Silent) can be applied, or somewhat confined parameters can be tweaked to change fan speed and the target CPU temperature.

Boot settings can be changed under the ‘Boot' section.

Being an ROG product, Asus provides some noteworthy tools with the Maximus VI Hero motherboard. Perhaps the most useful of all is ROG SSD Secure Erase. It can be used to erase data from and reset the performance of a supported SSD by ‘cleaning' the NAND chips. This is a highly useful tool that can save many hours when trying to restore the performance of an SSD that doesn't have specific restoration software available.

ROG SSD Secure Erase worked perfectly with our 120GB Kingston HyperX 3K drive.

Up to eight overclocking profiles can be saved to the M6H. These profiles can be easily transferred to and from the motherboard with a USB flash drive.

Quick access to settings can be accomplished by adding them to the favourites page.

A note can be added to the BIOS profile which can be helpful when testing stable overclocks. A log outlines the previously modified parameters so that accidental settings aren't applied.

Upon hitting F10 to save the configuration and exit the BIOS, a window pops up displaying all of the settings that have been tweaked in this visit to the BIOS. This is a good feature that offers an extra line of protection in the case of an incorrect setting being applied.

Asus has implemented an excellent UEFI BIOS for the Maximus VI Hero, and in doing so, has managed to maintain most of the key features from the Extreme motherboard's interface. It is attractive, easy to use, and features plenty of customisable options.

Sonic Radar

One piece of ROG software that really caught our attention was Sonic Radar. The tool is an overlay that indicates the direction of interaction in a game. For example, the radar shows the direction of enemy gunfire, footsteps, or even explosions and vehicle movement in a shooting game.

The Sonic Radar piece of software is bundled in with the Realtek audio installer. Typing ‘Sonic Radar' into the Windows search box will bring up the tool.

Eager to test this out, we loaded up Battlefield 3. The Battlefield 3 game didn't want to work when Sonic Radar was running. To overcome this problem, we simply loaded Battlefield 3, before opening up Sonic Radar once the game had launched.

The overlay can be set to lie in different areas of the screen.

Sensitivity was the first characteristic that we noticed about Sonic Radar. The overlay is very sensitive towards any type of noise that is created in the game. At some points, it can seem a little jerky due to the rapidly adjusting interaction lines.

The radar did work correctly for our spell of Battlefield 3, and a quick test with Metro 2033, provided the enemies were in front of the character. Turn the player around and the radar continues to display the gunfire as coming from the forward direction when it was really coming from behind. This certainly was an irritating shortfall and one that we hope Asus will fix soon.

While Sonic Radar is a convenient tool that does provide some assistance in FPS games, I wouldn't call it a feature that makes me want to rush out and buy an ROG motherboard specifically for it. That said, the tool's importance and relevance are entirely related to one's individual preference. Changing the overlay's on-screen position may have also changed my usage style.

Automatic CPU Overclocking:

As the Maximus VI Hero does not feature any pre-defined, heavily-tweaked overclocking profiles, we were forced to use the ‘CPU level up' settings as our automated process. In all honesty, I prefer the basic ‘CPU level up' overclocks as they apply a simple multiplier and VCore adjustment without changing DRAM frequencies and other parameters, sometimes for the worse.

The 4.40GHz ‘CPU level up' setting was the one that gave us stability at the highest frequency. The CPU VCore setting was left at ‘Auto' which proved stable enough for a few minutes of Prime95.

We suffered BSODs using the 4.60GHz level up, but this is past our 4770K chip's perfectly-stable limit of 4.50GHz.

The automatic overclock validation can be found here.

Manual CPU Overclocking:

To test the Asus Maximus VI Hero motherboard’s CPU overclocking potential, we first increased the CPU VCore to 1.350V, Cache voltage to 1.300V, and CPU Input Voltage to 1.900V.

PLL overvoltage was enabled, the Cache multiplier was maintained at 39x, and load-line calibration Level 1 was used (to provide a consistent voltage).

As with all of the previous Z87 motherboards that we have tested, the Asus Maximus VI Hero was able to boot into Windows using a 4.6GHz processor frequency, but it was only a few minutes before we suffered a BSOD.

We obtained stability by backing down to the 4.5GHz frequency that our 4770K chip has proven to like. Despite setting the CPU VCore as 1.350V through the BIOS, the Maximus VI Hero motherboard applies 1.360V while idling, and about 160mV more when under heavy load. Decreasing the BIOS-set voltage slightly helped to eliminate this over-adjustment.

Due to the fact that we observed similar behaviour with the Maximus VI Extreme, we would put this issue down to an easy-to-fix BIOS setting.

Our 4.5GHz validation can be viewed here.

High-speed Memory Compatibility:

While a system’s maximum memory frequency may be heavily swayed by the CPU’s individual memory controller, the motherboard’s performance can also help to obtain higher speeds, especially when XMP settings are taken into account.

We switched to a 3000MHz set of Avexir Core Extreme Series memory to test the Asus Maximus VI Hero motherboard’s support for high DRAM frequencies. These sticks feature an XMP profile for 3000MHz and are a great challenge for any Z87 motherboard to support. You can read the memory kit's individual review here.

Note: Asus provided us with a pre-release BIOS which may help to deliver better memory overclocking margins. We updated to this BIOS for the sole purpose of testing the Maximus VI Hero motherboard’s memory overclocking performance. The BIOS that we used will be available to download shortly.

Irrelevant of whether we used the 0711 BIOS or Asus' pre-release 0029 version, we couldn't obtain a stable boot at 3000MHz using two sticks. We did however manage to boot into Windows with one stick installed and running at 3000MHz.

Tweaking some of the voltages may have assisted in running the Avexir kit at its 3000MHz frequency, but that's not the point of testing with an XMP profile.

While failing to boot with 3000MHz memory is slightly disappointing on the Maximus VI Hero's part, feedback from our Facebook page and comments on our memory reviews tell us that the likelihood of gamers using such high-speed sticks is very low.

To test the Asus Maximus VI Hero, we paired it with an Intel Core i7 4770K processor and 8GB of 2133MHz memory from Patriot. We will be outlining the Asus Maximus VI Hero motherboard's performance with the Core i7 4770K CPU at its stock frequency of 3.5GHz and when overclocked to 4.5GHz.

We will be comparing the Asus Maximus VI Hero motherboard's performance to that of four other Z87 products. All motherboards are partnered with identical hardware and software, so the results are directly comparable.

By default, the Asus Maximus VI Hero motherboard forces the 4770K to a constant 3.9GHz. This will be displayed as the ‘stock’ setting.

Motherboard Test System:

• Processor: Intel Core i7 4770K 3.50GHz.
• Memory: 8GB Patriot Viper Xtreme Division 2 2133MHz.
• Graphics Card: nVidia GTX 760 2GB.
• System Drive: 500GB Samsung 840 Series SSD.
• CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i.
• Case: NZXT Phantom 630.
• Power Supply: Seasonic Platinum 1000W.
• Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

Compared Z87 Motherboard(s):

• Asus Maximus VI Hero (BIOS 0711 – newest).
  
• ASRock Z87 Extreme9/ac (BIOS v1.70).
• Asus Maximus VI Extreme (BIOS 0711).
• Gigabyte Z87-D3HP (BIOS F4).
• MSI Z87 XPower (BIOS v1.0).

Settings:

• Asus Maximus VI Hero BIOS 0711.
• GeForce 320.49 VGA drivers.
• Intel 9.4.0.1017 chipset drivers.

Software Suite:

• 3DMark
• 3DMark 11
• PCMark 8
• Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0
• SiSoft Sandra 2013 SP4
• Cinebench 11.5 64 bit
• Super Pi
• VLC Media Player 2.0.7
• CyberLink Media Espresso 6.7
• HandBrake 0.9.9
• ATTO
• Battlefield 3
• Metro 2033
• Sleeping Dogs

PCMark 8 is the latest version in the popular series of PC benchmarking tools. Improving on previous releases, PCMark 8 includes battery life measurement tools and new tests using popular applications from Adobe and Microsoft. Whether you are looking for long battery life, or maximum power, PCMark 8 helps you find the devices that offer the perfect combination of efficiency and performance for your needs.

PCMark 8 shows a preference towards the Maximus VI Hero motherboard, albeit by a small margin.

3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.

After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.

The stock-clocked Maximus VI Hero shows another chart-topping performance in 3DMark 11, but again, the victory is narrow.

3DMark is Futuremark's latest benchmark. It can be used to benchmark and compare everything from mobile devices, such as smart phones, tablets and laptops, to high-end gaming systems. The benchmark is available for Windows, Windows RT Android and iOS.

With 3 separate tests, each of which is intended to be used alongside a specific classification of hardware, 3DMark is a very versatile benchmark. Ice Storm is intended to be used with mobile devices, Cloud Gate is good for use with laptops and home PCs, and Fire Strike can be used to push the performance of gaming PCs.

We used the ‘Fire Strike' benchmark which is designed to be used on gaming PCs. We opted for the Normal setting, NOT the Extreme mode.

3DMark's result gives the Maximus VI Hero a full set of Futuremark benchmark victories. Early results would suggest that the Maximus VI Hero is a solid motherboard for gamers that manages to narrowly outperform some of the other Z87 options.

Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

Asus' subtle gaming enhancements, and the lack of a latency-increasing PLX switch, are allowing the Maximus VI Hero to shine in graphics-related tests.

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

The Hero scores highly in Sandra's processor arithmetic test, and memory bandwidth performance is equally as impressive as the Maximus VI Extreme's.

CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all – it’s completely free.

Cinebench puts the Hero joint-last on the performance chart. The difference between all stock-clocked motherboards in this test is a narrow 0.04 points.

Super Pi is used by a huge audience, particularly to check stability when overclocking processors. If a system is able to calculate PI to the 2 millionth place after the decimal without mistake, it is considered to be stable in regards to RAM and CPU.

We used Super Pi's '32M' benchmark setting.

The stock-clocked Maximus VI Hero is narrowly beaten by its Extreme brother in Super Pi's 32M test.

The Matroska Media container is a very popular, open standard multimedia container which is usually found as .MKV files. It is a very popular format in enthusiast circles and can be played directly in VLC or Windows Media Player with suitable codecs installed.

We played our 1080P MKV rip of The Dark Knight using the latest version of VLC Media Player.

HD playback is a strength for the Maximus VI Hero. Asus' gamer-orientated ROG board is able to offer CPU-efficient playback which is likely related to its low CPU overhead for stability software and onboard controllers.

CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.

Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.

New and Improved Features

• Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
• Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
• Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
• Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
• Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
• Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.

For our testing today we are converting a 4.4GB 720p MKV file (1h:58mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power.

Hardware acceleration is disabled to provide an accurate interpretation of the CPU performance.

As Cinebench did, Media Espresso sees the Maximus VI Hero sat in joint-last position on the results chart. Using the M6H to overclock the processor does provide a substantial performance boost.

HandBrake is a fantastic free program that can be used to convert video files to many common formats for portable devices. HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multi-threaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

We used the latest V 0.9.9 version.

For our testing today we are converting a 4.4GB 720p MKV file (1h:58mins) to MP4 format, using HandBrake's ‘Normal' profile, for playback on High-Resolution devices. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power.

Operating at stock frequencies, the Maximus VI Hero delivers a middle-of-the-road conversion result using Handbrake.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously.

Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

Our testing uses a Kingston HyperX 3K SSD.

As has been the case with all other ASM1061-equipped Z87 motherboards that we have tested, the native PCH SATA 6Gb/s ports offer restriction-free performance, while ASMedia's offerings limit drive bandwidth to around 400MB/s.

With its emergence as the new standard for high-speed portable devices, USB 3.0 performance on a modern motherboard needs to be good to ensure that data transferral bottlenecks aren't created.

We tested USB 3.0 performance using an ADATA SP300 SSD connected to an Icy Box IB-223StU3 USB 3.0 enclosure (ASMedia ASM1051 controller). ATTO was the benchmark used.

Using Asus' UASP-activating software called USB 3.0 Boost, the Maximus VI Hero is able to offer well over 250MB/s read speeds from an attached device, provided the drive is fast enough.

According to EA, Battlefield 3 garnered 3 million pre-orders by the day of its release. It is unknown at present whether these figures are worldwide or just for the US. The pre-order total makes it “the biggest first-person shooter launch in EA history”, according to the publisher. The engine is beautiful on the PC and very demanding of the partnering hardware.

We used the game's demanding ‘Ultra' setting and a 1920 x 1080 resolution to push today's gaming hardware.

As Futuremark's set of tests suggested, gaming performance seems to be very competitive on the Maximus VI Hero. The gaming-intended ROG motherboard is able to offer chart-topping performance in Battlefield 3, although the marginal advantage could be related to the testing procedure's systematic and measurement errors.

Sleeping Dogs started development as an original title, but was announced in 2009 as True Crime: Hong Kong, the third instalment and a reboot of the True Crime series.

As a result of the game’s high development budget and delays, it was cancelled by Activision Blizzard in 2011. Six months later, it was announced that Square Enix had picked up the publishing rights to the game, but the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs in 2012 since Square Enix did not purchase the True Crime name rights.

Solid gaming performance is again shown in Sleeping Dogs. The Maximus VI Hero configurations take the top spots by virtue of alphabetical order.

Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter video game with survival horror elements, based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. The game is played from the perspective of Artyom, the player-character. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, mostly inside the metro system, but occasionally missions bring the player above-ground.

We used the game's built-in benchmark set to ‘Very High' quality to offer an intense challenge for the gaming hardware while also making playable frame rates a possibility.

The still-demanding Metro 2033 benchmark sees the Maximus VI Hero's performance brought down to the level of other Z87 motherboards.

We measured the power consumption with the system resting at the Windows 7 desktop, representing idle values.

The power consumption of our entire test system is measured at the wall while loading only the CPU using Prime95's Small FFTs setting. The rest of the system's components were operating in their idle states, hence the increased power consumption values (in comparison to the idle figures) are largely related to the load on the CPU and motherboard power delivery components.

The Extreme Engine Digi+ III components are advertised as being efficient, and our power consumption figures would back that point up. Using 69 Watts when idling at stock speed is the second lowest Z87 result that we have seen, bested only by Gigabyte's Z87-D3HP which is very light in regards to add-on controllers.

Targeting users that want ROG gaming features, but not the plethora of cost-increasing overclocking enhancements, the Maximus VI Hero is an excellent addition to Asus' prestigious Republic Of Gamers series of motherboards.

With eight power phases dedicated to the CPU and Asus' Extreme Engine Digi+ III components, the Maximus VI Hero has no problems taking our 4770K chip to its stable overclock frequency of 4.5GHz. We were able to push to the processor's limit of 4.6GHz but, as was the case with all other Z87 motherboards we have tested, the Maximus VI Hero couldn't keep the overclock stable.

The Maximus VI Hero didn't have the ability to run our dual-channel set of Avexir Core Extreme Series memory at its 3,000MHz rated speed using the XMP profile. We managed to run a single stick at 3000MHz, but not both of them in dual-channel mode. As we pointed out earlier in the review, this isn't a huge disappointment as gamers seem to be largely uninterested in such expensive, high-speed memory that is built for extreme benchmarkers.

Asus supplies the Maximus VI Hero motherboard with a solid set of gaming-relevant features. Eight SATA ports are likely to be plenty for most gamers, and so is dual-card CrossFire and SLI support. SupremeFX audio is a lower-cost, but perfectly acceptable alternative to a discrete sound card. Six USB 3.0 ports is borderline-acceptable with many similarly-priced boards offering at least eight, and just two USB 2.0 headers (one of which is blocked by ROG OC Panel) is risky.

But it's the ROG-exclusive features that make the Maximus VI Hero shine. Sonic Radar is a unique tool that gives FPS gamers a slight advantage. GameFirst II network control software is useful on a device-heavy network. SSD Secure Erase has the ability to save plenty of time, and restore performance while it's at it. ROG RAMDisk is worth looking into for users with RAM-heavy systems.

One notable exclusion from the ROG feature list is the mPCIe Combo II card. However, this isn't an exclusion that I think gamers will be too disappointed by. Granted, the 802.11ac wireless support will be useful to some of the Maximus VI Hero's target audience, but the M.2 SSD slot is unlikely to be of much interest for gamers' near future. What will be more important to gamers is the reduced price tag brought on by the mPCIe Combo II card's omission. The same can be said for the OC Panel.

General layout of the Maximus VI Hero is very good. Power connectors and headers are where we would expect them, and expansion slot layout is well-suited for single- or dual-card gamers. A right-angled USB 3.0 header would have been welcomed.

Asus' implementation of the ROG UEFI found on the Maximus VI Hero is fantastic. The interface is simple to use, easy to navigate, well laid-out, and stable. For the more overclocking-inclined gamers, there are plenty of customisable options and good voltage headroom.

Priced at £166.16 from Aria, the Maximus VI Hero is situated directly in the centre of a fierce price war. For example, MSI's Z87-GD65 Gaming, Gigabyte's Z87X-OC, ASRock's Z87 Extreme6, and even Asus' own Z87-PRO are all within £10 of the Maximus VI Hero's price point. Quite frankly, there is no outright winner in the circa-£170 motherboard market.

With a true Republic Of Gamers design, many worthwhile features, and an excellent UEFI BIOS, the Asus Maximus VI Hero is a good choice if you're shopping in the hotly-contested, mid-range Z87 motherboard market.

Pros:

• Lots of worthwhile features (Sonic Radar, GameFirst II, SSD Secure Erase).
• SupremeFX audio.
• Attractive style.
• Good overclocking performance.
• Excellent UEFI BIOS.
• Sturdy power delivery system.

Cons:

• Only two USB 2.0 headers (one shared with ROG_EXT connector).
• More USB 3.0 ports would be good.

KitGuru says: Gaming-orientated ROG features make the Maximus VI Hero a great choice if you're looking for mid-range Z87 motherboard.

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